A long time ago in a galaxy not so far away the Notre Dame Fighting Irish came to Heinz Field and manhandled the Pitt Panthers on both sides of the line of scrimmage.

That was in 2005, Dave Wannstedt's first game as Pitt's head coach, a 42-21 loss to the Irish. After the game he said the Panthers would not be able to compete until he rebuilt their lines. He then preached patience because he said rebuilding lines -- as well as changing the mentality of a team -- took time.

With that in mind he took to the recruiting trail hard in search of offensive and defensive linemen and made several changes in the next two years that he believed would give the Panthers' lines a chance to develop into dominant units.

Those included moving Greg Gattuso from tight ends coach to defensive line coach after the 2005 season and hiring Tony Wise as the offensive line coach and Buddy Morris as the strength and conditioning coach after the 2007 season.

Fast forward to Saturday night when those same Irish came to Heinz Field to play the Panthers. By the time that game was halfway over this much was clear -- Wannstedt has delivered on his promise of rebuilding the Panthers' offensive and defensive lines into physical and dominant units.

The Panthers' defensive line manhandled the Irish veteran offensive line and Pitt's offensive line did the same thing to the Irish's defensive line. And that was the key to the Panthers' 27-22 win against Notre Dame.

The two units have not gotten nearly enough credit for the Panthers' success this season.

Yes, Pitt's skill position players have been good, but the Panthers have had solid skill position players in the past and fallen short. They have not been able to dominate the lines of scrimmage in this manner for a long time, likely since the early 1980s.

"I was just a young pup against all those fifth-year seniors and walked out on that field [in 2005] and was in awe of Notre Dame and thought, 'Man we can't match up with them,'" said fifth-year senior defensive tackle Gus Mustakas, who was a freshman that season.

"We know now that the sky is the limit with us, we know we have a great coach in coach Gattuso and when we take the field, we're not in awe of anyone or feeling like we're going to be overmatched by anyone.

"From where we came from until now is crazy. We [the defensive line] were the jokes of the team and maybe in the Big East, but we've turned it around. We're no longer taking the field saying 'Wow, look at how good they are.' We're taking the field saying, 'We're about to get after these guys,' and we know we can."

The Panthers entered the Notre Dame game leading the country in sacks, in large part because of the defensive line's dominance, and pressured Irish quarterback Jimmy Clausen the entire game. Pitt allowed only 66 yards rushing on 25 carries and knocked down several passes at the line of scrimmage.

On the other side of the ball, the offensive line cleared the way for the Panthers (9-1, 5-0 Big East) to rush for 193 yards and once again kept quarterback Bill Stull clean. He was not sacked and was not under pressure for most of the game.

Like Mustakas and his unit, the offensive linemen credit their position coach -- Wise -- as well as Morris and his offseason conditioning program which is designed to produce stronger and leaner linemen and players who are mentally and physically tougher than their opponents.

Stull said it is fun to watch the Panthers' offensive linemen play these days because they are able to impose their will on teams late in games.

"Going into the fourth quarter we knew we were going to keep pounding the ball and we did," Stull said.

"It is a great tribute to our guys up front that we finished the game by running our powers successfully because that's our bread and butter."

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